Gates Strikes out In Pakistan; Obama’s AfPak Policies in Disarray

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates’s trip to Pakistan this weekend has in many ways been public relations disaster, and I think it is fair to say that he came away empty-handed with regard to his chief policy goals in Islamabad. Getting Pakistan right is key to President Barack Obama’s policy of escalating the Afghanistan War, and judging by Gates’s visit to Islamabad, Obama is in worse shape on the AfPak front than he is even in Massachusetts. Since he has bet so heavily on Afghanistan and Pakistan, this rocky road could be momentous for his presidency.

The Pakistani public has a widespread resentment against US incursions against the country’s sovereignty (64% say the US is a danger to the country’s stability). But it also has a sort of paranoid obsession with Blackwater, which they suspect of covert operations to disrupt security in the country (i.e. they blame Blackwater for bombings that Americans see as the work of the Taliban). Thus, Gates’s statement produced a media frenzy. (Jeremy Scahill has alleged in The Nation that Blackwater is in fact in Pakistan in a support role to CIA drone attacks in the country’s mountainous Northwest on Taliban and al-Qaeda targets).

Dawn, a relatively pro-Western English daily, quoted the exchange, saying Gates was asked by the interviewer on a private television station,

‘ “And I want to talk, of course, about another issue that has come up again and again about the private security companies that have been operating in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. . . Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater and Dyncorp. Under what rules are they operating here in Pakistan?”

Gates replied,

‘ “Well, they’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq because there are theatres of war involving the United States.”

Gates had one strike against him, since he came to Pakistan from India. Moreover while in New Delhi he clearly was a traveling salesman for the US war materiel industries, who would like to pick up some of the $60 billion India is planning to spend on weapons in the next few years. During the Cold War, the US had mainly supplied Pakistan’s military, and had been lukewarm to India, which Washington felt tilted toward Moscow. The current shift of US strategy to wooing India to offset growing Chinese power in Asia is taken by some Pakistanis as a demotion.

Then, he encouraged a greater Indian role in Afghanistan, including, according to the Times of London, possibly in training Afghan police. Pakistan considers Afghanistan its sphere of influence and the last thing it wants is a role for Indian security forces in training (and perhaps shaping the loyalty) of Afghan police. Germany is currently in charge of the police training program, but India is afraid that in the next few years NATO will depart, and that Pakistan will then redeploy its Taliban allies to capture the country for Islamabad’s purposes. India is also concerned about significant Chinese investments, as in a big copper mine, in Afghanistan. So New Delhi is considering the police training mission.

In addition, Gates had praised Indian restraint in the face of the fall, 2008 attack on Mumbai (Bombay) by the Pakistani terrorist organization, the Lashkar-i Tayyiba [Army of the Good]. He warned the Pakistani leadership that India’s forbearance could not be taken for granted the next time. That is a fair point, but it is not the sort of thing you say publicly on your way to Islamabad from Delhi if you want to be received as an honest broker. Pakistanis feel that India has inflicted many provocations on them, too, not least of which was the Indian security forces’ often brutal repression in Muslim-majority Kashmir, where thousands have died since 1989 in a separatist movement with which Pakistanis deeply sympathize. (Pakistani guerrilla groups also did routinely slip into Indian Kashmir in support of local separatists).

In fact, Gates was careful not to over-emphasize such demands, but there was a general public perception that he was doing so. The editorials in Urdu newspapers on Jan. 23, which the USG Open Source Center analyzed, complained bitterly about this further demand. Express sniffed that the US should establish security in Afghanistan and then everything would settle down in Pakistan’s northwest. Khabrain rather cleverly pointed out that Pakistan has concentrated on limited territory in fighting its Taliban, which is wiser than the US policy of opening several fronts at once and getting bogged down.

Jang, which is mildly anti-American, said,

Describing Robert Gates’ pro-Indian statements irresponsible, the editorial says: “It is believed that the political and military leaderships of Pakistan, with one voice, have made it clear to Gates and the titanic-size delegation accompanying him that in the present circumstances, it is not possible for Pakistan to accede to the persistent US demands of ‘do more’ and to further expand military operations in the tribal areas, because Pakistan not only has to secure the areas that it has taken control of from the militants but also has to strengthen and stabilize its position there.”

To be fair, the Pakistani military committed tens of thousands of troops to these two campaigns, in Swat and South Waziristan, and is in fact attempting to garrison the captured areas so as to prevent the return of the Pakistani Taliban. In the past two years, the Pakistani army has lost over 2,000 soldiers in such fighting against Taliban in the Northwest, a little less than half the troops the US lost in its 6-year Iraq War.

The Pakistani military campaigns of the past year, however, have not targeted those radical groups most active in cross-border raids into Afghanistan– the Quetta Shura of Mullah Omar’s Old Taliban, the Haqqani Network of Siraj Haqqani in North Waziristan, or whatever cells exist in Pakistan of the largely Afghanistan-based Hizb-i Islami (Islamic Party) of Gulbadin Hikmatyar. Washington worries that the effectiveness of its own troop escalation in Afghanistan will be blunted if these three continue to have havens on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line. And, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani worries that the US offensive in Afghanistan will push thousands radicals over the border into Pakistan, further destabilizing the country’s northwest.

Gates made a clumsy attempt to mollify Pakistani public opinion over the very unpopular US drone strikes on suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban cells in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, by offering the Pakistani military 12 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones of its own. But the Pakistani military pointed out that the outdated RQ-7 Shadow UAV’s on offer were unarmed and merely for aerial reconnaissance, and maintained that Pakistan’s arsenal already contained such drones.

Does it matter? One sometimes see Americans dismiss Pakistan as “small” or “unimportant.” Think again. Pakistan is the world’s sixth-largest country by population (170 million),just after Brazil (200 million). It is as big as California, Oregon and Washington state rolled together. Pakistan’s 550,000-man military is among the best-trained and best-equipped in the global South. Pakistan has within it a middle class with a Western-style education and way of life (automobiles, access to internet and international media) of some 37 million– roughly 5 million families. (Pakistan has over 5 million automobiles now and is an emerging auto producer and market, with auto production at 16 percent of its manufaturing sector). If we go by local purchasing power, it is the world’s 27th largest economy. It is a nuclear power with a sophisticated if small scientific establishment, and produced a Nobelist in physics.

Gates went to Pakistan to emphasize to Islamabad that the US was not again going to abandon it and Afghanistan, as it had in the past. Pakistan, he wanted to say, is now a very long-term ally of Washington. He hoped for cooperation against the Haqqani, Taliban and Hizb-i Islami guerrillas. He wanted to allay conspiracy theories about US mercenary armies crawling over Pakistan, occasionally blowing things up (and then blaming the explosions on Pakistanis) in order to destabilize the country and manipulate its policies.

The message his mission inadvertently sent was that the US is now increasingly tilting to India and wants to put it in charge of Afghanistan security; that Pakistan is isolated; that he is pressuring Pakistan to take on further counter-insurgency operations against Taliban in the Northwest, which the country flatly lacks the resources to do; and that Pakistani conspiracy theories about Blackwater were perfectly correct and he had admitted it.

In baseball terms, Gates struck out. In cricket terms, Gates was out in the most embarrassing way a batsman can be out, that is, leg before wicket.

10 Responses

Tariq Anwar

It was nice to read a balanced and honest opinion. I being a Pakistani felt as if you wrote what I always wanted to say, with few exceptions, nevertheless. Although American establishment says that in Indo-US-Pakistan triangle, there is no zero sum game. I think hare US is grossly mistaken as this practice may be OK with westerners but with Asians, especially South Asians (Pakistanis and Indians both)is mere hypocritical. We believe "A friend's friend is a friend whereas an enemy's friend is an enemy". Probably this the reason of paranoia we Pakistanis suffer and are not ready to believe US anymore. We may be better off without US as our past association has left us in the present mess (not absolving Pakistani establishment of past sins.

boyturtle

I take issue with 'In cricket terms, Gates was out in the most embarrassing way a batsman can be out, that is, leg before wicket.' The most embarrassing way for a batsman to go out is for a duck, i.e. when they fail to score any runs; would you say this happened to Gates on this trip to Pakistan?

Cocomaan

James-Speaks

Gates needs to mention India when he talks to Pakistan, and of course he needs to mention Pakistan when he talks to India. Maintaining a dialogue between the two countries who could, in a bad case scenario, become the first nations to launch nuclear weapons at each other over water rights, is probably more important than anything else he could be doing in the Middle East.

Anonymous

Covering the deficiencies of the Pakistani civil society by pointing impotent facts will not help. Howcome the Pakistani people despite having such a burgeoning middle class (western educated?!?) have failed to rein in their military over the course of 6 decades? You want more facts? How about this? This is a country which was an ally of the US, China and the Arab world during the first few decades after its independence (some might say that it still is) and used their aid and assistance to leverage a campaign of hate against India rather than get its own house in order.

After all the excesses that have been chronicled with respect to the Pakistani military, do you earnestly believe that the Pakistani civilian society has any power or credibility to be a positive agent of change?

The answer, in one word – HELL NO.

Oh wait that's two! Leave it to the educated middle class to figure that one out;)

ScottNY

I have to agree with a few other posts here. I usually agree with your analysis, but in this case. Pakistan has a lot of issues it needs to work out. India has slowly gotten it's house in order. Pakistan still suffers from coups, political assassinations. They have huge swaths of their country they do not control with insurgents bombing major cities, and yet they still are worried that India will come invading across the boarder. India is more interested in improving their country (witnessed by the many jobs us Americans have lost to them).

You mustn't let your affinity for Islamic culture cloud your views.

Anonymous

Gates went to India to assure Delhi that though negotiations with the Taliban would be initiated, that did not mean the US would cave completely to Pakistani whims. His assurance came in the form of a recognition that India and the US share many common interests that extend well beyond Afghanistan (something sorely lacking in Washington's relationship with Islamabad). India will be "compensated" for strategic restraint in Afghanistan and vis Pakistan with US arms and a US recognition of India's rising status.

Gates went to Pakistan to request that Pakistan go after those who are "irreconcilable" (from a US perspective, i.e. Quetta Shura and Haqqani etc.) but also to indicate that USG and Afghan government would be undertaking effort to negotiate with other Pashtun/Taliban elements. Pakistan appears to have said plainly, "No, we think you will leave and we will continue to back our strongest players."

A failure? Perhaps. But what can you expect when playing with a hand as weak as Gates's?

A Bear in the Woods

I see that at least one commentor has remarked that Pakistan is untrustworthy because it hasn't reined in its military. I find that ironic, at best. At this point in U.S. history, I'm pretty sure that we won't be able to arrange for more than short term partnerships based on perceived pragmatic need. When India is through overhauling their economy, they may not need us, even to help them deal with China's overbearing presence. The list of nations that we can count on for support has dwindled to a few western European countries, and even those few are steadily cutting better deals for themselves, for the price of carrying our bags.

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